“The Man Who Spoke to Shadows”

Every night, when the city fell into sleep, Arman would talk to the shadows in his room.

He couldn’t remember when it started — perhaps after his father’s death, or maybe the shadow had always been there, patient and quiet, waiting for the right silence to speak.

At first it was just a whisper.

Barely audible.

A murmur that sounded like his own breath rebounding off the walls.

But soon, it began to form words.

Real words.

“You’re wasting your life,” it would say.

“You’re nothing without me.”

Arman would pull the blanket over his head, as if the fabric could protect him from something that wasn’t real. But the whisper seeped through the threads like smoke.

The darker the room, the clearer the voice became.

Arman worked as a loan officer in a narrow, fluorescent-lit bank in Karachi. His days were measured in signatures, coffee stains, and the constant ticking of a wall clock that always ran a minute too slow.

He wasn’t a bad man — only tired, invisible, and ordinary.

At work he smiled when required.

He nodded when scolded.

He apologized for mistakes he hadn’t made.

But behind those polite gestures, a low pressure kept building — resentment, shame, anger — things he had learned to hide because good people don’t show them.

The shadow noticed.

It always did.

Each time his boss mocked him in front of others, the voice whispered, “He wouldn’t dare if you reminded him what you’re capable of.”

Each time Arman swallowed his rage, it murmured, “That’s how weak men die — quietly.”

The breaking point came on a humid Monday evening.

The bus was overcrowded; sweat and noise clung to the air.

A man pushed past Arman, elbowed him in the ribs, and muttered a curse.

Something inside Arman snapped.

Before he could think, his hand had closed around the stranger’s collar, shoving him hard against the metal pole.

The man gasped, eyes wide.

Passengers screamed.

And just as suddenly as it began, it ended.

Arman stepped back, horrified at his own hands — trembling, hot, alive.

He got off at the next stop, chest pounding like a drum.

The shadow inside him was laughing.

“You felt it, didn’t you? For the first time, you existed.”

That night, he didn’t sleep. He sat in front of the mirror until dawn, watching his reflection, waiting for it to move on its own.

It didn’t.

But it smiled when he didn’t.

Days blurred into weeks.

He stopped going to work.

Stopped answering calls.

The refrigerator emptied, but he didn’t notice.

He lived in darkness — curtains drawn, phone switched off, only the faint glow of streetlights leaking through.

The shadow had become a companion now.

Sometimes it argued, sometimes it comforted.

It knew everything he feared, every word he regretted saying, every secret thought he had buried.

“Why me?” he asked one night.

The shadow laughed softly.

“Because you made me. Every time you swallowed your anger, every time you hid your pain, every time you forgave when you shouldn’t have — I grew stronger.”

Arman felt cold all over.

He realized this wasn’t some ghostly possession.

This was him — the version he’d never allowed to breathe.

He whispered, “So what do you want?”

The shadow replied, “To live. To be free. To stop pretending we’re good.”

A storm arrived one evening — thunder roaring like something alive.

Lightning flashed through the window, painting the walls with silver scars.

The lights went out.

In that perfect darkness, the shadow spread across the ceiling, larger than ever.

It spoke again, louder this time.

“Let’s end this, Arman. Only one of us deserves to stay.”

Arman stood. His legs shook but didn’t give way.

“I agree,” he said. “But it won’t be you.”

He picked up a candle and struck a match.

The flame trembled but held.

He lifted it slowly, walking toward the blackness crawling across the walls.

The shadow hissed, shrinking back.

“You can’t destroy me,” it spat.

Arman took another step.

“I don’t need to destroy you,” he said. “I just need to stop feeding you.”

With every word, his voice steadied.

The light reflected in his eyes — tired, tearful, but unbroken.

The room filled with warmth.

The shadow dissolved into the corners, thinner, weaker, until there was nothing left but the faint sound of rain outside.

When morning came, Arman was still sitting on the floor.

The candle had melted into a small pool of wax beside him.

Sunlight poured through the window for the first time in weeks, illuminating dust motes dancing gently in the air.

He felt something he hadn’t in years — quiet.

Not happiness. Not peace. Just quiet.

And that was enough.

Weeks later, the neighbors noticed he had changed.

He began greeting them again.

He trimmed his beard, repaired the broken bulb in the hallway, and started jogging every dawn, when the city still yawned in half-light.

He got his job back.

He smiled easily now, though his eyes carried a softness that made people trust him.

Sometimes, in the middle of a conversation, he would pause — glance at the shadow on the wall — and nod slightly, as if to an old friend who finally learned when to keep silent.

Because Arman now understood what most people never do:

you don’t get rid of your darkness.

You acknowledge it.

You learn to keep the flame alive a little longer than the night lasts.

And when it whispers again — because it always does —

you simply smile and say,

“Not today.”

Written by: h

Muhmmad Ishaq